Twyla Tharp ends her 50th Anniversary Tour in New York City. Twyla Tharp premiered her first work, Tank Dive, on April 29, 1965, in room 1604 of Hunter College’s Art Department (where she was not a student). It was the only dance on the program and lasted four minutes, which she considered to be the longest amount of time she thought she could fill to perfection. Besides, she noted in a … [Read more...]
Dancing to Beat the Reaper
Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion brings three works to the Joyce Theater. Seated at a piano in a corner of the Joyce Theater, Kris Bowers begins to play a quiet, rippling tune—familiar yet unfamiliar. Beside the instrument and close to the front rows of spectators, Kyle Abraham performs a prelude to his company’s season, never moving outside a muted spotlight’s beam. Just as Bowers dreamily … [Read more...]
Wandering Ballet Forests of Love and Death
England's Royal Ballet performs in New York June 23-28. Felix Mendelssohn wasn’t yet eighteen when he wrote his Overture to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He’d only just read the play that year (1826) in German translation; it must have excited him mightily. He was over thirty when he combined the overture with incidental music to accompany a performance of Shakespeare’s … [Read more...]
From Denmark With Love
Royal Danish Ballet: Principals and Soloists appears at the Joyce Theater, January 13 through 17. Guess what! August Bournonville has a website (bournonville.com). Since he died in 1879 and didn’t expect the many works he choreographed for the Royal Danish Ballet to long survive, he would undoubtedly be gratified to learn that eight of his ballets and a handful of divertissements weathered … [Read more...]